


Capital L Love

by orphan_account



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, True Love, Unrequited Love, but then i got kinda invested, it's barely a paragraph, just bc i fucking adore mike/ben/bev, kind of, oh!, sex is mentioned but like. really briefly, this started as a drabble for tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 00:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12852390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Richie didn’t love Eddie. Not the way Eddie loved Bill or the way Ben loved Bev. He loved Eddie, yeah. But he didn’t Capital L Love him.





	Capital L Love

Richie didn’t love Eddie. Not the way Eddie loved Bill or the way Ben loved Bev. He loved Eddie, yeah. But he didn’t Capital L  _Love_ him. Eddie was Richie’s best friend, his partner in crime, but it was weird for them to try to be anything more. Kissing Eddie felt unnatural. not because he was a guy, but they clashed. Richie’s glasses got in the way of Eddie’s nose, and they just didn’t  _fit._

He still cried when Eddie left him. Eddie came over to his house and knocked on his door and smiled sadly at Richie and explained why, and Richie understood. They hugged and then parted and then Richie cried.

 _“I think I love Bill,”_  Eddie had said.

 _“I think you do, too,”_  Richie had replied. There was a laugh and a joke about Eddie wanting Big Bill, and then they hugged for a long time. It felt like a long time, at least. It could have been five seconds or five minutes. Richie couldn’t tell. When he saw Eddie and Bill at lunch kissing and laughing and feeding each other the shitty school fries, he wasn’t jealous.

He didn’t care. And that wasn’t a lie. Sure, he got this weird feeling in his chest that felt like the time Henry Bowers had smashed his fist against it. But it wasn’t because it wasn’t because it was Eddie and Not Richie. It was because it was Anyone and Not Richie.

Everywhere he looked, it seemed, people were in love. Ben and Beverly and Mike had their weird little dynamic. Eddie and Bill fell in love within three weeks of dating. Couples made out (and Richie swore they’d sometimes fuck) in the hallway. People were getting married and the cheers of the wedding guests rang through the streets during the day.

By the time they were in their twenties, Richie hadn’t dated anyone since Eddie. They’d all moved out to New York, in a cosy little apartment that they called home. There was plenty of space for all of them, and because the heater didn’t work, it was cheap. The only person Richie knew who wasn’t dating anyone was Stan.

Stan and Richie’s relationship had always been fuzzy. Stan pressed his knee against Richie’s more during movie night than any of the others. Richie trusted Stan more than any of the others, other than Mike.

Everyone trusted Mike.

There had been nights where Richie crawled into Stan’s bed and cried and buried his face in Stan’s chest. Stan would hold Richie close and just talk. It didn’t matter what about. Be it birds or how he made the bomb ass omlet that morning or the phone call he and his mother had on Wednesday, it helped.

Stan wasn’t Richie’s first, but he was the first who meant something.

It was a messy night on some day in November, and Richie was crying and Stan kissed him and things snowballed from there. It was gentle and loving and it was Stan whispering about how  _good_ Richie was, and how proud he was of him. Stan didn’t leave him there after. He left for a minute or two to get water and some grapes and a washcloth, but he came right back and stayed with Richie the whole night.

It was after that that Richie and Stan started getting  _really_ close. They didn’t talk about what happened, but it wasn’t awkward, either. There was just nothing to talk about. They became Richie and Stan. It wasn’t Richie and Nobody or Richie and His Jokes. It was Richie and Stan.

They didn’t make things official until that December. Richie realised how  _right_ everything felt. When their bodies pressed together, there was no awkward angling that had to be figured out. Stan didn’t have to take two tries to kiss him right. His nose didn’t bump against Richie’s glasses. They  _fit._

On New Year’s, they kissed. It was different, that time. Richie’s stomach fluttered and his heart pounded and he felt  _free._ He didn’t have to hide from Stan. They spent the rest of their time together. Whether it was work and helping each other out (Stan would fill in for Mike at the studio and Richie would double check Stan’s numbers) or going grocery shopping (Stan would list things off and Richie would go down each isle and get things off of the high shelves), it was Richie and Stan. 

They exchanged their first serious “I love you”s in April. They were planning a prank to pull on the other losers, and Richie suggested something about hair dye shampoo, and it slipped out of Stan. Richie kissed him and mumbled it back. 

They exchanged their first “I’m in love with you”s in August. They were lying in bed, their fingers intertwined, and Richie said it first. His voice was quiet, and Stan replied with a smile and an equally soft, “Yeah?” to which Richie replied with, “Yeah.”

“I think... I think I’m in love with you, too, Richie.” There was no Trashmouth or Tozier or Babe. He was  _Richie._

They were in Capital L Love, and Richie didn’t dare doubt it.


End file.
